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Here, by popular demand: The Floating Castle Recap/ Summary! The Timelime is all very well for a Laconic version of each post, but this will help you catch up on what's actually going on-- a summary/overview of what important people and events have been introduced to the Castle.

Adventurers begin to arrive on the Floating Castle, taking back the ruined city they find from the cows and other creatures that are overrunning it. Several attempts to rule the city are made, mostly unsuccessful. Guilds begin to form. A City Guard is formed, headed by Captain Legias.

A group of kobolds from the floor above attack the city. They succeed in injuring many, but are killed. The Church becomes a center for healing in the aftermath.

The Underground is discovered when Darren and Curtiss recover a key from an antagonist mage. Before long, adventurers are heading in and battling what they find there -- vampires, personal demons, and eldritch abominations. Darren defeats some constructs with the aid of a magic and potentially evil book. One pair of adventurers even encounters shadow creatures, the reflections of their true selves.

Adventures happen. An assassin’s guild reveal their presence. Anji and Julius are trapped in a time loop by a strange ruined temple in the forest. Inside, they find a letter from Arthur, former king of the Castle, to Millena, his queen. Darren and Mirae treat with the goblins on floor 2, giving them explosives. These are later used by the goblins to stir up hostilities between the human outpost and the rakes, also on floor 2. Pan and Julius encounter a minotaur using magic to fuel a rage cult. The way to floor 3 is cleared, defeating a stone golem in the depths of the goblin mines.

The Civil War

Hector is dragged out by Luca and Asha and exposed as the Jade Devil, a mass murderer from Lamada, Ben’s country. This, some quick talking, and a rage spell put up by Asha turns the city inhabitants against the guilds. The city falls to rioting.

Because of Hector’s exposure, Ben takes control of Severed Claws. Heroes Unlimited retreats to the sewers and invites other guild members to join them. Storm and Drive, having taken in an injured Hector, retreat to the abandoned temple.

Many city inhabitants are now part of an “anti-guild” movement, kept going both by mob mentality and wooden rage amulets made by Asha. These talismans can mimic other spells, in this case, the one the minotaur used. The anti-guilds attack any guild member or possible guild member they meet, as well as anyone caught helping the guilds.

Soren Kavros, former Guard member, becomes a leader of the anti-guild faction. He originally follows Luca’s direction, holding one of their command centers, but starts working on his own soon after. He is captured by Marcus and Pan when he attempts to burn down the forest in order to find the hidden guild members.

Storm and Drive decides to move to a higher floor for safety. To do so, Tamar, with the help of Likovya, takes back the podium and places it under City Guard control. Before they can move up, Kavros is killed by his shadow self (like those found in the Underground). Zi becomes dangerously unhinged, setting fire to the temple where Storm and Drive are hiding. She flees into a battle between the anti-guilds and the Guard, and is rescued and taken in by Asha.

Shadow!Kavros meets Anji and Julius in the forest, offering them a choice: kill the rest of their guild, or die. They refuse. Anji is stabbed through the stomach. Julius’s metal powers activate, turning his swords into liquid metal he can control, helping him stave off the worst of his wounds to get Anji to safety. The shadow escapes.

Lori petrifies Anji to preserve her life. She declares her and Julius to be dead, keeping Julius in disguise as a librarian.

Elsewhere, encounters with the anti-guild are still going on. Some are killed, some are convinced to stand down, a small number switch sides. Other dangers also continue. Tamar and Salvantas attempt to rescue a group of people from Cloth, a monster clown, and her cronies. Kurt flees from something unknown.

Marcus retrieves the gem from Anji and Julius’s time traveling adventure, to search for a healer for Anji. He travels to the 20th floor, where he meets a mysterious person calling himself Shard. Shard challenges Marcus to make a run for the podium. If he lives, Shard will heal Anji’s wounds. Marcus manages to survive, and Anji is healed. But her memories are gone.

Asha is revealed to be a soul, stripped of a body. Zi offers herself as a substitute body, and Luca assists in the transformation. The group travels to higher floors.

More and more victories against the anti-guilds are being won. Things come to a head simultaneously. Shadow!Kavros finds Ben showing the amnesiac Anji around the temple and attacks. He is killed by Anji. The main force of the anti-guild mass on floor 3, and are scattered by Jenny, Likovya, and Mirae. Luca and Asha are confronted on the mountains of floor 4 by Tamar and Hector. Luca is killed; Asha releases Zi’s body before she dies.

The civil war is over.

Exploration

People recover from the civil war. The wounds taken in the final battles are dressed, though the psychological injuries take longer to heal. Anji recovers her memories and takes over Severed Claw from Ben. Severed Claws and Storm and Drive merge into one mega-guild, Severed Storm. Likovya, Curtiss, and a few others form the unofficial guild Sky Chasers, dedicated to adventuring and having fun.

People get lost in the sewers.

Morionem and Salvantas investigate the deep forests of floor 5, breaking the trees away from the control of a druid. Tamar and Darren explore floor 6, which is covered in ocean. They unlock elaborate mechanisms and release a kraken in the process of making dry land. Marcus and Mirae turn into cows on floor 10. The effect reverses when they get to the stair to the next floor. Kurt, Seire, and company fight their way through floors 12 and 13. (Narnia-like land complete with winter witch and plains with centaurs, respectively.)

Anji and Kurt deal with floor 9, which hides its murderous intent behind friendly illusions. In the struggle, floor 9 is killed.

The Castle Changes

Shard, ordered by the current King to stop everyone from climbing the Castle, meets Julius on floor 20. During their argument, Shard teleports both of them into the city, where he kills Julius and rearranges the Castle, speeching about how the adventurers will die like the vermin they are. This rearrangement causes earthquakes throughout the Castle. In response, Lori organizes the Loreknights and any volunteers for a massive protection spell. This lasts for a day, exhausting everyone involved.

People react to the earthquakes and Shard’s actions. As the initial aftermath wears off, life continues. On the higher floors, people try to survive and find some sort of safety. In the city, pairs fight off dangers such as man-eating ducks. Anji and the rest Severed Storm hosts a ball to improve morale. A friend of Curtiss’s sets up a wind spell to help protect the city’s borders.

Lori meets with Shard in the forest and exchanges her blood for answers to three questions. Among these is that the current King is human. Lori dismisses Shard by commanding him to leave three times. In a crypt, Ben and Aram find some of the late king Arthur’s followers wandering, with an immortal spirit in the form of a parrot. Once convinced that Arthur is gone, the followers disintegrate; the spirit bird flies off.

The new layout of the Castle is found out. The floors are now in a spiral, going slowly up as they wind around, leaving steep cliffs at their edges. Between some floors, there is a passage that takes you immediately from the top of the cliff to the bottom. Since the podiums no longer work, these make for a shortcut. We know of one between floors 9 and 1, and another, now-barricaded, between 12 and 3. In response, the Guard and guilds begin sending out scouting parties in hopes to make an outpost higher up; none are successful.

Marcus returns to the temple where the time gem was found, along with Mirae and Plinny, Fern’s former teacher. They meet a metal construct in the basement and retrieve an information disk about Shard, turning it over to the Loreknights for decoding.

A tauros attacks the city, claiming to be a messenger and injuring the leaders of Severed Storm. It turns out to be the Guardian of the first floor, a small piece of the genius loci that is Shard. Every time a Guardian defects or is killed, Shard is weakened. In addition, if an adventurer kills the Guardian, they may become the Guardian for that floor. As of now, floors 1 and 9 have been freed.

?

As the injured recover from the tauros attack, expeditions to higher floors continue. These are mostly themed on dreams, including one with a nightmare mage. A woman claiming to be Millena, King of the Castle, is found overseeing a miniature version of the floors. Tensions between the Assassin’s Guild and Cloth’s (a monster clown) group are rising.

A number of adventurers are teleported to barracks on floor 25, their memories of everything since they entered the castle gone. After much confusion, the gate closing them in is opened from both sides and their memories returned. Any lingering ramifications remain to be seen.

Interactions with the Castle's residents increase. Darren and Fern return to one of the floors they previously scouted for an outpost, the great turtle of floor 16. They attempt to convince it that Shardreach has turned against the King and should be an enemy. Regardless of whether the turtle believes them, it accepts the terms of an unknown, ancient treaty and allows access to its land. Meanwhile, Giselle and Pan disrupt a gathering of resentful Castle denizens and convince them to ally with the humans instead of attacking, thus gathering the goodwill of a large number of races.